interlude: our carefree lives | Glowfic Constellation

this_peculiar_power

Lee Tae-gun. Korea's first and, currently, only S-rank. There are A-rankers who could get the promotion to S-rank, if they wanted to, if they revealed enough of their powers—or, at least, there is one, in Kang Jaeha himself—but this flash in the pan boy was the first one to decide to just go for it and now he's probably learning about how much it sucks to be the center of attention.

Not that you'd know from just looking at him. He's always gorgeous, stepping out of dungeons, and that's genuinely impressive in itself, but it's even more impressive if Quasar is right that they might be compatible. This implies things about the shape of Lee Tae-gun's backlash, things that suggest he's quite good at self-control, and that he must be holding quite a lot in, to be able to look like that. So that piques Jaeha's curiosity, and he looks into the boy.

Lee Tae-gun is 21; manifested really late, about a year and a half ago; has had three partners so far, two A-ranks and one B-rank, each lasting a handful of months and ending in the normal way these things do, with two of them finding partners they're more compatible with and one stepping away from dungeoneering. As far as Jaeha can tell, there's nothing particularly out of the ordinary in the boy's history. He's really just very straightforwardly boring.

And, well, Jaeha is also between partners right now. The story with him is also usually the same: he's never found anyone he had great compatibility with, and they'd all eventually leave, even if they never found someone else. Better alone than with Kang Jaeha. But he doesn't take it personally. He knows they probably want more out of a partnership than he can give. This boy will be no different, they'll spend a while together and help each other survive and eventually the boy will move on and Jaeha won't take it personally either.

So Kang Jaeha is in a meeting room, reading some files and waiting for Lee Tae-gun to arrive so they can figure out whether they'll do business together or not.

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Baek Hyun-jae

wrack_and_ruin

"Well, whatever. Let's just go stop at a bunch of stores and look at things we're definitely not buying you and then when it's your actual birthday we'll invite half of Quasar and that'll be that."

neither_rest_nor_peace

He looks pained.

Ha Si-yeon

freefall

"Only the half you like, how about?"

neither_rest_nor_peace

"Fine, just put me out of my misery."

Lee Juheon

first_and_only_law

"How about cake? Do you like cake? Let's figure out some kind of cake to get you for your birthday, there's this lovely bakery I know..."

neither_rest_nor_peace

"My friends were asking about you," Tae-gun says while they're eating dinner together.

this_peculiar_power

"...oh?"

neither_rest_nor_peace

"Just... you know. Since we're partners and all."

this_peculiar_power

"I guess it's natural they'd be curious." Not that he'd know. "What'd you say?"

neither_rest_nor_peace

"I... didn't. Much. Um." He takes a deep breath then looks at Kang Jaeha. "I... feel like we don't know each other all that well? And, um. I want to. Get to know you better, that is."

this_peculiar_power

"Well, what would you like to know?"

neither_rest_nor_peace

"I don't... know. I'm not really good at these things, I don't know what other people in these situations do, they just kind of... happen."

this_peculiar_power

"'These situations'?"

neither_rest_nor_peace

"You know, relationships."

this_peculiar_power

"Are we in a relationship, then?"

neither_rest_nor_peace

"Yeah?"

this_peculiar_power

"And what's that relationship, Tae-gun?"

neither_rest_nor_peace

"We're par—oh." Oh, that. That...

That phrase does have some meanings, huh.

Uh.

Um.

this_peculiar_power

"Just partners? Nothing more? Strictly transactional?"

...his heart is. Making a noise. Of some kind. He'd been teasing but he's having some sort of reaction. And he's not some dumb BL protagonist who'll hear the ba-dum of his heart in such a situation and go, "gosh, what's this?" It does take him a second but only a second to realise that when your heart starts going ba-dum when you make a joke about a romantic relationship that has some implications about your feelings.

The thing that's tripping him up there is that 'feelings' bit.

neither_rest_nor_peace

"Well... I mean... yeah...?"

this_peculiar_power

"Yeah? So if I said I didn't want to be just your partner, what would you say?"

Ba-dum.

Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum.

neither_rest_nor_peace

"I don't know? I. I need to think. Um."

this_peculiar_power

He doesn't like that response. He doesn't like that at all. He's—feeling something, something he does not want to be feeling, and actually it feels like this is going very very wrong.

Why is he feeling that way?

He needs to think.

He should stop Tae-gun and undo—

this_peculiar_power

...no?

No, he. He's not going to undo it, actually.

Why not?

He should undo it. He should undo it because he needs certainty, he should undo it because if Tae-gun comes down on the wrong side then it'll be a lot harder to get him on the right side later, because he could spend some more time getting Tae-gun convinced and then ask the question and...

...and he doesn't want to. Besides, even if he did, he lost his timing, he can't grab that memory anymore, it's been too long, but also he doesn't want to.

Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum.

neither_rest_nor_peace